Rajendra Singh wins Stockholm Water Prize

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Rajendra Singh, environmental activist based in Rajasthan, has been conferred the prestigious Stockholm Water Prize this year for his innovative water restoration efforts and courage to empower communities in Indian villages.

Mr. Singh, popularly known as “Water Man”, was named for the global award instituted by the Stockholm International Water Institute in 1991 for his work towards improving water security in rural India and for showing extraordinary courage and determination in his quest to improve the living conditions of those most in need, a statement said.


Mr. Singh, born in 1959, has dedicated himself to defeating drought and empowering communities for several decades. He won the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2001 for his work on community-based water harvesting and water management. In its citation, the Stockholm Water Prize Committee said: “He has literally brought villages back to life. We need to take Mr. Singh’s lessons and actions to heart if we are to achieve sustainable water use in our lifetime.”


On receiving the news about the prize, Mr. Singh said “this is very encouraging, energising and inspiring news.”

“When we started our work, we were only looking at the drinking water crisis and how to solve that. Today our aim is higher. This is the 21st century. This is the century of exploitation, pollution and encroachment. To stop all this, to convert the war on water into peace, that is my life’s goal,” he said.

Rajendra Singh wins Stockholm Water Prize - The Hindu

 

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[h=1]Let communities manage water: Rajendra Singh[/h] Vidya Venkat

“It is sad that while Stockholm is willing to recognise the importance of water conservation, our own governments in India, at the Centre and in the States, have not shown the keenness to tap into indigenous methods of conserving water,” he says over the phone. In 2012, Mr. Singh quit the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGBRA) over the government’s lack of commitment towards river rejuvenation. So is he happy with the present dispensation giving rejuvenation of the “national river” its due, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi promising to elevate it to a mass movement? His response is tepid.

“The word rejuvenation came from our work, but what is happening now in its name is contractor-driven sewage treatment plant fixing work. This is not river rejuvenation. In the government’s plan, besides sewage treatment, there is riverfront-view development work, which will only benefit contractors and corporate groups,” he says. He further adds that it is not enough if the government declares the Ganga the national river. “Similar to the National Flag, protocols have to be developed for its treatment. Punish the polluters, separate river water and sewage,” he says.


On March 26, the Union government is going to organise a meeting of the NGBRA, but what they are probably going to plan might not be as exhaustive as what his group Tarun Bharat Sangh had undertaken in Rajasthan over the past three decades, during which seven rivers — Arvari, Ruparel, Sarsa, Bhagani, Sabi, Jahajwali and Maheshwari — were revived by catching rainwater and filling the fractures in its bed to recharge their underground aquifers. “We constructed 11,000 waterbodies in these seven river beds to bring them back to life. It is painstaking work, which governments do not want to invest in.”


And that is why, Mr. Singh emphasises community-driven decentralised water management. “The need of the hour is communitisation, not corporatisation of water,” he says. Commenting on the Centre’s ambitious project to interlink rivers, he says it is not a good idea. Starting in 2007, the Tarun Bharat Sangh undertook a detailed survey of the Ken-Betwa river-linking project and observed that in the past eight years of its progress, both rivers received the same amount of rainfall, “then how can you justify connecting them as there is no rationale for sharing.”


Mr. Singh has started a “Jal Jan Jodo” campaign to spread the message of water literacy and efficiency now.
Hailing from Dola village in Uttar Pradesh, Mr. Singh had joined the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan in 1980 and arrived in Rajasthan. But after a few years in government service, he realised he could not pursue his real ambitions and started working on independent projects for environmental conservation. From his humble beginnings, today the man is preparing to lead a global water peace march from the U.K., starting August 14.

Let communities manage water: Rajendra Singh - The Hindu